Cruise Ship-style Dining

This past Saturday was one of those that had Farmer Paul and I out running around town all day. We started out heading into town (Snohomish) to do a couple of things. For lunch, Paul wanted to get seafood at Chuck’s on 1st Street. Chuck’s is a character restaurant. Not in the “Mickey Mouse” kind of way, but in the “sitcom” kind of way. Sitting at the bar, dunking my fish & chips in tartar (delicious!), enjoying show. Andy cooked up a storm in front of us in the open kitchen…keeping everything perfectly synchronized, the waitress was running to keep up with the busy Saturday lunch crowd and Chuck greeted everyone coming through the door, alternating between the pleasant remarks for the average customer walking in, to the familiar “gruffer” greetings for the regulars (which includes Paul). Good, enjoyable small-town comfortableness.

After lunch we wandered through some of the shops as we made our way down to where we parked the car. In one of them, an Italian import shop, the owner offered us a taste of truffle oil (I’ve always wondered what it was like…and the answer is…very good! But $17 a bottle good? not until I’m rich!) and a taste of balsamic vinegar. Of course, I’ve tasted balsamic vinegar before…there’s almost always some in the cupboard. The one he was sampling was a 10-year-old vinegar and it was very nice. As we talked a bit more, he must have decided he liked us, cause he pulled out the good stuff. It was, he said, a 20-year-old bottle of balsamic. The difference in taste was surprising. The older vinegar was candy-sweet with the tangy bite of vinegar still there. It was also $60 for a bottle. Paul and I came up with the idea of drizzling it over our Christmas morning french toast. Don’t be surprised if it ends up wrapped under our Christmas tree this year!

Well, the day went on into the evening. After haircuts, dishwasher shopping and other random errands, we found ourselves thinking of eating dinner. We were near a bar & grill we’ve enjoyed several times, so we stopped and went in. At this point, it was almost 8 and the place was full with people waiting outside. We put our names on the list to get a table in the dining area, but then went and stood near the bar tables which were seat-yourself. All available tables in the area were taken, and there was another couple ahead of us waiting also. After 15 minutes or so, a table opened up and the couple started to head over, but then the man turned around, asked if it was just the 2 of us waiting, and suggested we join them at the 4-top table rather than waste the extra 2 seats.

So we cruise-shipped it. Sat down at a dinner table with another couple that were complete strangers and had a fantastic time introducing ourselves and being socialable. Kelly’s a truck driver who went to Spring Creek Barbeque in Fort Worth a while back while visiting his sister in Dallas (oh, for some of Spring Creek’s fresh hot rolls!!!), and Margie works for an insurance company and shared some proud-mom stories of her kids who are mostly grown up and out on their own. Over the hour or so we were there, we talked about chicken farming, construction going on in Seattle and the surrounding area, and lots about classic rock.

It certainly was not the dinner experience I thought we would have when we went into the building. It was better.

Maybe next time we’ll extend the invite.

Ryan’s Birthday Wish

One thing that really has me puzzled is how my children can keep having birthdays and getting older while I really don’t think I’ve gotten older. The pages on the calendar keep turning and I guess I celebrate my birthday once a year like they do, but they seem to be growing older (and taller) much, much quicker than I do. I don’t feel like I could possibly be 11 years older than I was when my youngest child was born!

This week was Ryan’s 11th birthday so of course he got to choose his meal and his cake. His meal was homemade pizza which Nick and I have down to a science at this point. Nick makes the dough and sauce and gets all the toppings ready before I get home from work, and I spend the next 2 hours making pizza for everyone.

The cake, though, took a little bit more work. About 5 years ago, Austin “designed” his own cake (which you’ll have to wait until March to find out about), and that cake is known in our house as “Austin’s Chocolate Cake.” Ever since then, Ryan has wanted to have a “Ryan Cake” and has challenged me to make a cookie cake. Not a cookie that we put candles in, but a chocolate chip cookie and a chocolate cake merged deliciously together.

The first year I tried to incorporate cookies into the cake itself by dropping cookie dough into the cake batter and baking. That was just weird. The cookie dough pieces sunk to the bottom of the pan (of course) and it really didn’t look or taste very good. So last year I tried making a giant cookie and putting it between the layers. The problem with that was the cookie was too hard and I couldn’t cut through it. Not pretty.

So this year, I made a bigger cookie and cut out a circle the size of the cake, thereby avoiding the hard edges of the cookie. Then I cut it in wedges before putting it between the cake layers.

This time it worked! Beautifully! I don’t think I needed to pre-cut the cookie into wedges, I just need to make sure it’s not over cooked.

And I think the quest for Ryan’s cake is complete. It was interesting to have the cookie in the middle like that, but it really made for a very rich cake (so cut small pieces).

Happy Birthday, Ryan! Made for you with love, I present…
“Ryan’s Chocolate Cookie Cake”

Family Trip to the Market

Needing a nice family outing to get everyone out of the house and away from each other’s throats, we decided today to load up in the car and drive the 1/2 hour to Seattle’s Pike Place Market. I did have a vague hope that we would have a pleasant stroll through the market, find some perfect veggies and seafood for a delicious, seasonal meal. What was I thinking!?!?! It’s a Saturday in August, the market’s crowded and noisy and it’s hot.

After fighting through the traffic, we actually found a great parking spot that wasn’t too outrageously expensive and only involved climbing the equivalent of Mount Everest to get to the market. We started wandering, but it seemed like no matter where we were, it was in the midst of a chaotic mess of people. about an hour into it, I started to get crabby. It was time to find lunch.

Seattle. Waterfront. Tourists. Fish & Chips. Ivar’s. One seems to lead strait to the next, doesn’t it? We asked a couple of people where we could get good fish & chips, and we got 2 suggestions, one of which was Ivar’s. I know…you don’t have to lecture me. There are Ivar’s everywhere and totally commercialized, but I kept reminding myself that it wouldn’t be a chain if people didn’t like it. So they must be good. Seattle! Waterfront! Tourists! It had everything going for it!

Everything, that is, except comfort, value and taste. The fish was fine, but didn’t have much of a fish flavor, and the chips were limp and greasy. The only place to sit was in an outdoor seating area that had me telling the boys not to touch the table with their hands after they’d washed them. So I’m going to have to get me some cod soon and do fish & chips right.

We never did go back and get stuff for dinner. I didn’t want to face that crowd again. We just came home and made chili. So much for seasonal! But it was soul-comforting.

The Student Surpases the Teacher

There comes the realization in a parent’s life that the child is starting to connect the dots. The big lessons and the little lessons that you’ve taught over the many, many, many years start to lose some of their randomness in the child’s minds and becomes a cohesive mass of knowledge. And then they use that newly realized knowledge and perform beyond what you perceived their capabilities to be.

I have been concerned for several years now that we really messed up when raising Nick. Don’t get me wrong…he’s a great kid. He’s got an ever-ready sense of humor, a tenacity and work ethic that exceeds that of many grown men, a kind heart and a quick and sharp intelligence that makes conversing with him very enjoyable. Not the perfect child, but a perfect part of our family.

So where did we mess up? Well, he has grown up with a gourmet’s palette. Because of my love for and talent for cooking, he believes, with all his heart and soul, that food should always be great. An occasionally great meal isn’t sufficient for him. Pizza really ought to be homemade, or at worst the best (read expensive) of the takeouts. Spaghetti sauce should NEVER come from a jar unless it’s a jar of my homemade sauce that I’ve canned. I never need to bother with buying canned soup which is a completely unacceptable substitute for homemade. We don’t need to bother buying the pre-made cookie dough ’cause he would rather spend the extra couple of minutes making his own recipe that includes a touch of maple and is so much better. Even Rice Krispie Squares must be homemade. How did we manage to create this monster?

Last Spring he decided that he wanted to apply for the culinary program at the high school. It’s an alternative program that has the kids spend 1/2 of their day at a distant campus learning culinary skills and cooking, and the other 1/2 day in their regular classrooms. With kids (11th and 12th grades) from 14 school districts applying for the 40 openings, the competition is tough. During his interview he was asked what his first choice destination would be if he could go anywhere in the world to eat. You know what my gourmet child replied? Paris? Rome? New York? Wrong! He answered that he would go home for his Mom’s (that’s me!!!!) cooking. And he got accepted into the program. One of the very few Juniors who were accepted.

This rave of pride for my oldest child leads me to the photo you see above. It’s a cobbler filled…loaded…with peaches and blackberries. I bought a couple boxes of peaches for eating and canning purposes and of course, our property is covered with blackberry bushes. So while Farmer Paul and I were out for our Anniversary dinner, he recruited Austin as his sous chef and modified a peach cobbler recipe to include blackberries. And it was a total, complete, ultimate success.

So join me in recognizing the skill of my son who won’t let me get away with convenience if it sacrifices taste and who has been helping me in the kitchen since he was tall enough to peer over the edge of the counter. Here’s his Peachy Blackberry Double-Crusted Cobbler. The one thing we did decide that needed to be changes, was that the filling should be cooled down before putting the cobbler together to bake. Otherwise the butter in the pie crust melts as soon as it hits the fruit, and the crust doesn’t end up flaky.

DOUBLE CRUSTED PEACH COBBLER

FOR THE CRUST:
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for shaping and rolling
2 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
16 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
7-10 tablespoons ice water
FOR THE FILLING:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon maple flavoring
Pinch salt
6 ripe peaches, peeled, pitted, and cut into 1/4-inch thick slices
2 cups blackberries
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons heavy cream (for brushing top)
cinnamon-sugar (to sprinkle on top)

TO MAKE THE CRUST:
Place flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor and process for 5 seconds. Add butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add water, a few tablespoons at a time, until the dough just comes together.

Remove dough and knead lightly on a lightly floured surface until it just comes together. Divide the dough in half and form into disks. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Once dough is chilled, remove from the refrigerator and roll each disk into a the approximate size of a 9×13″ pan, approximately 1/4-inch thick. Place on parchment paper-lined baking sheets and return to the refrigerator to chill until ready to assemble.

TO MAKE THE FILLING:
Melt butter in a large high-sided saute pan over medium heat. Add the sugar and water and cook until sugar is dissolved. Add remainder of ingredients and cook for 15 minutes until thickened. Refrigerate until chilled (1 hour or more)

TO MAKE THE COBBLER:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Place half of the peach mixture in the bottom of a 9×13 buttered baking dish using a slotted spoon. Top the peaches with 1 layer of dough.

Bake until the crust is light golden brown.

Remove from the oven and top the crust with the remaining peaches and cover with the other crust. Brush the top crust with heavy cream, sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar, and return to the oven.

Bake until the crust is golden brown and the juices are bubbly. Let cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting and serving.

Yield: 12 servings

Pre-Season Thanksgiving

If you can have Christmas in July, then why not Thanksgiving in August?

We had some chickens that had to be processed this past week and they did a turkey too. My thought was that I would do something fun & novel with the turkey. Maybe throw it on the grill or break it down and do different, untried-before dishes with the different parts. Apparently, I was the only one who didn’t immediately think Thanksgiving Dinner.

So, as we watch a preseason Cowboys game, we’ll eat preseason Thanksgiving leftovers.

And turn on the air conditioning!